Glow

What it does

Glow Inc. offers 4 different apps centred around women’s health, including conceiving, pregnancy and baby health. The company wants to help its users learn more about their bodies through data.  

The Glow Fertility app is aimed at women who are trying to fall pregnant and uses data to help couples conceive faster. The app allows users to track their cycles and record physical symptoms, sexual activity as well as day-to-day moods. This data is used to accurately predict the user’s ovulation cycle. 

The app also offers articles from medical experts, and community forums for women to discuss their reproductive health. 

How it helps

In the age where most adults are tracking their health with technology, there still seems to be a large lack of information about how to fall pregnant. When I began the TTC (trying to conceive) journey, I was amazed at how much I didn’t know about my own body. Glow has been one of the tools that really helps. 

Not only does the cycle tracker seem to be much more accurate than other apps, but the articles and community insights really help you to understand which symptoms are ‘normal’. I’ve also quickly learned that falling pregnant is about a lot more than just having sex during the two days you ovulate, which is where the community forums and articles really help. 

I have only ever used the free version and can’t really see the need to upgrade (other than removing the annoying ads). 

Conclusion

Glow has been a really helpful and comforting tool during my TTC experience. It has provided much needed info, insight and advice that is directly applicable to my own life and body, and not just the generic advice that many websites offer. Whilst I’m very sceptical of Glow’s claim to increase your chance of getting pregnant by 40%, it is still a very useful and worthwhile app.

What other users say

“I have been using this app since it came out 5 years ago. It’s the only app I seem to get the most out of, in fact, I had my 2 best friends install it as well and they have been using it for a couple of years now. Only reason for 4 stars is the constant advertisement for premium and the premium version itself is so expensive.”- Mamma K

What the experts say

“In two to three years I could see having data sets that we can trust, because we’ll soon have the finest data set, but right now we’re at first base, for the first inning, of a nine inning game,” says fertility specialist Dr. Phil Chenette, a co-author of the paper and medical advisor to Glow.